ADVICE - Keeping your car’s cooling system funtional
When a car overheats, it usually means there’s a problem with its cooling system. And while these problems manifest themselves more often in summer, they aren’t exclusively confined to the warmer months.
No matter what time of year it is, or what the weather conditions are, it’s important that your car’s cooling system is working at its best. But when a problem arises, how do you fix it?
Peter Maher of Liquid Intelligence Smart Solutions has the answer in the form of his ‘Liquid Intelligence 239 Engine Cooling System Cleaning Kit’ – a DIY cooling system cleaner that he’s had considerable success with.
Drawing on decades of experience in the field, Peter answers some of the most commonly asked questions about cooling system problems and explains why the Liquid Intelligence 239 kit is a better - and longer lasting - solution than other commercially available products.
Q: What are the clues to an inefficient cooling system that car owners should look for – specifically those that point to the need for a product like Liquid Intelligence 239?
A: If your vehicle’s temperature gauge continually moves past centre whilst idling at a set of lights or when driving in city traffic on hot days, then your cooling system is probably compromised with a build-up of calcium and ferrous oxide (rust) scale, which is preventing it from working to its full efficiency.
Q: What are some of the common mistakes car owners make in treating overheating of their car’s cooling system?
A: The typical method of dealing with overheating is to give the vehicle a quick flush and then spend a lot of money masking the overheating symptoms with upgrades – a new or larger radiator, new thermostat, new hoses, fresh coolant, possibly a new water pump and maybe even an electric fan.
But, even if your radiator has been cleaned or replaced because of calcium and rust deposits, the engine block and cylinder head can still be coated and compromised by those same deposits - everyone seems to forget about that!
Generally, the build up of ferrous oxide and calcium scale is the root cause of overheating. For example, scale of just one millimetre on the internal walls of the engine’s water jacket can reduce cooling system heat transfer efficiency by 30% - and that’s where most overheating problems are originating.
Q: What is it about Liquid Intelligence 239 that makes it superior to other commercially-available radiator flush products?
A: Think of it this way - take a 300ml bottle of a big brand radiator flush solution. These solutions retail for about $10, so for the retailer to sell it a that price, they would have to purchase it for about $5.00. If you added up the cost of manufacturing, you would have to include the bottle itself, then the cap, a label, a carton, labour, freight, commissions and profit - before you even get to the actual radiator flush chemical. If there is more than 50 cents worth of chemical radiator flush in the bottle after the manufacturer has paid for all that, then I would be very surprised!
Once you get past the glitter and the pretty packaging, there is not much substance to some of these retail products. Most people find them less than adequate…. not because of their formulations, but simply because there’s just not enough of the active chemical agent in them to make much of a difference.
Also, common sense tells us that a quick flush with 300ml of a retail brand radiator cleaner will not remove what took years of use and thousands of kilometres to build up.
The Liquid Intelligence philosophy has always been to build the best products possible that REALLY DO WORK. By circumventing the retailer and their profit margin, and without the cost restraints of retail market forces, we have been very successful in producing some of the strongest and most effective products available.
Q: Will Liquid Intelligence work just as effectively on older engines using straight water as the cooling agent, as opposed to more modern engines using coolant?
A: The Liquid Intelligence 239 kit is a concentrated serious organic cleaner that’s designed to dissolve and break down insulating build ups of ferrous and mineral scale on anything, from a modern Ford Mustang to a classic Packard that's been sitting in a shed for 70 years.
Importantly, the kit does it safely, without reacting with or damaging aluminium, copper, brass, solder, cast iron, zinc alloys or any other component found in a cooling system.
Q: Would one treatment be enough to treat a rust and scale-clogged engine, or could there be circumstances where a second treatment is required?
A: There is enough in the kit to treat up to 30 litres of cooling system capacity. For badly fouled cooling systems, two treatments may be required.
For a single treatment, the process can take three to ten days, depending on the condition of the cooling system before you start.
During the cleaning process, it’s recommended you either drive as much as possible or at least idle the vehicle once or twice every day. This is because the ‘Part A’ of Liquid intelligence 239 is ten times more effective at removing scale at 70°C or higher than it is at room temperature. So drive often, as the more flow, turbulence and heat you generate, the faster the chemical action works.
Used correctly, this cleaning kit can return your vehicle’s cooling system back to the way it was when it rolled off the production line.
Q: Additional to the above, how can a DIYer tell if the treatment has actually done its job and effectively removed all the deposits from within the engine’s cooling system?
A: Used correctly, the Liquid Intelligence 239 Kit completely dissolves insulating build-ups of ferrous and mineral scale, thus optimising heat transfer and efficiency of the entire cooling system.
Benchmark the overheating issues before and after the cleaning process and you will notice a considerable difference in the engine running temperatures.
Q: For DIYers uncertain about using the Liquid Intelligence 239 kit, is there a helpline where they can ask questions about the product either before or while they’re using it?
A: We have technical support available from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week to help users every step of the way. We see this support as an essential part of our service because we’ve found that there are just too many variables for one set of instructions to work across all applications.
We prefer to discuss the type and condition of your vehicle's engine block first, then suggest an individual method of applying Liquid Intelligence 239. That way, we virtually always ensure the best possible result.
If you would like to have a chat about the technical and practical aspects of using the Liquid Intelligence 239 kit, please give us a call. You will get personal service from one of our qualified technical staff, some of which have more than 40 years’ experience in the industry. We are available on 1800 441 163 from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.
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